


and i'll hold in these hands (all that remains)

by whenthesunhasset



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, frank talk of death, spoilers for the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenthesunhasset/pseuds/whenthesunhasset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke watches the gates close from the protection of the trees, and it’s only then that she realizes she’s been holding her breath since she walked away. A shaky inhale racks her body, and she leans against a tree for support, strong regret mixing with determination somewhere in her gut. It’s the hardest thing she’s ever done, harder than leading a war or leaving her people to die, and that fact alone only makes her more sure of her decision.</p><p>So many lives have been lost. So many bodies litter the floors. So much blood coats her hands.</p><p>She turns her back and starts walking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i'll hold in these hands (all that remains)

**Author's Note:**

> Based loosely on [this post](http://nerdinablender.tumblr.com/post/113404207161/where-clarke-goes). Title from Skulls by Bastille. Post-season 2 finale, so there will be spoilers. There are probably mistakes I missed in here, sorry!

Clarke watches the gates close from the protection of the trees, and it’s only then that she realizes she’s been holding her breath since she walked away. A shaky inhale racks her body, and she leans against a tree for support, strong regret mixing with determination somewhere in her gut. It’s the hardest thing she’s ever done, harder than leading a war or leaving her people to die, and that fact alone only makes her more sure of her decision.

So many lives have been lost. So many bodies litter the floors. So much blood coats her hands.

She turns her back and starts walking.

It’s night by the time she reaches her destination, and she thinks for a moment that she should rest, begin the work when she’s gotten some sleep. The thought passes quickly. How could she sleep, after the events of the day? How could Clarke sleep knowing what she’s done, what she’s had to do, and worse--what she can’t bring herself to regret? And so she gets to work.

Walking back inside Mount Weather almost makes her doubt her decision. Almost. As she walks through the abandoned halls, still dimly lit by emergency lights, she can’t help but think of the wasteland above her head, of the piles and piles of dead bodies. Not all of those people deserved to die; there were children up there, and people who had no clue of the monstrosities their leaders called survival. I had no choice. I had no choice. I had no choice. The chant becomes a lifeline, becomes the only thing keeping her breathing as she continues her search and--there. A shovel.

The land surrounding the mountain is thankfully clear, clear enough that she can dig a hole what she assumes to be six feet deep. Then another. And another. She doesn’t stop until the sun rises and her bones are aching as much as her heavy heart. Yet she still can’t rest. Not until she buries them, buries the innocent ones. There are only nine graves, nine graves that don’t even begin to cover the losses. And so she digs again, unable to face the slaughter she caused, the slaughter she is responsible for, no matter what kind words Bellamy had offered her.

It is after her eleventh grave that she realizes she has to stop, has to at least drink something. The first stages of decay have to be setting in by now in that mausoleum she’s left on the fifth level, and yet she knows she can’t face what she’s done, not yet. Clarke enters the mountain anyways, shovel left outside in a half-dug grave. It’s small, she thinks. So, so small. It ends up being too big for some children.

It doesn’t take long for her to find the kitchens, though it does take long for her to leave them. She is weary down to her very core, and water and food can only do so much. But eventually her feet bring her back outside. The proximity had left her skin with goosebumps, and the fresh air seemed to be the only possible cure. Besides, there’s work to do.

The youngest are buried first. In the beginning, she cries; broken sounds that carry too well across the silent forests, so loud she fears someone will hear. Good. Let them. Let them know what I have done. It takes the rest of the day, but eventually the graves are filled. It’s not even progress. When night falls, Clarke finds herself at a loss. She can’t sleep outside: she knows the danger of earth’s elements well, but she can’t bring herself to sleep in one of the empty beds within Mount Weather. She ends up sleeping in the kitchen.

And so she spends her days digging, digging and burying, over and over in an endless cycle. Although there’s plenty of food at her disposal, she knows she isn’t eating enough, knows she is wasting away.

(It takes a week for her to bury all the children. She only eats when she has to. When she’s done, she finds a bottle of alcohol and drains it. It’s the one day she doesn’t work. The next night, she doesn’t sleep, instead spending the whole night bent over a shovel and dirt, endless dirt. She deserves it.)

The first time it rains, she’s been at it a month. Clarke is sure her back has permanent damage, and if she has escaped skin cancer she’s truly lucky. When the first drops begin to fall, she’s just finishing the grave of a half-rotting old woman. It doesn’t occur to her to stop until it’s too late, the ground around her turning to mud, sticking to her grimy skin like a physical reminder of the person she’s become. Half-heartedly, she goes inside, cleans the dirt off of her, and then she cries.

It’s the first time since the first day.

(For a moment, she’s glad she hasn’t marked the graves.

She realizes then that she wouldn’t know what to put.)

Another month passes. The faces are slowly becoming unrecognizable, and the stench follows her wherever she goes. This is her penance. This is what she must do. It’s back-breaking work, but she takes as few breaks as she is physically able to. The going is slow, but it’s going faster. There’s still so much to do.

Another month passes, and Clarke realizes she can’t count how long it’s been since she spoke. It takes another week, but as she’s burying the last of them--a family, from what she can tell; their bodies were all linked together through clasped hands gone slack with death--she sings. Her voice is hoarse from disuse, and was never that strong to begin with, but she sings, filling the silence with every song of mourning she remembers from her schooling on the Ark so, so long ago. When she finishes, she sings snatches of grounder melodies she remembers faintly from that time she felt she was unstoppable. Dusk is falling as she finishes burying the last of the family, and by then her voice has long since gone out. There’s only one more body to go.

She puts it off until tomorrow.

It’s noon, or near enough, and she finds herself standing before the last, lone grave, a too-light and terribly noisome body in her arms. When she lays it in the grave, it’s gentle, so gentle. There are flowers, around the grave, inside the grave. It’s the only one she’s dared to marked. It’s fitting, she thinks, that the one to try so hard to save them is the one that Clarke ends with in saving herself. Maya’s grave is beautiful and large, set just apart from the graveyard she’s created in more ways than one, and Clarke can feel the tears coming before she can stop herself. Sinking to the ground, she sings again, sings of people gone too soon in a watery voice filled with an unspeakable weariness.

Clarke spends one final night inside Mount Weather.

In the morning, she leaves. She doesn’t look back, can’t look back. There’s a feeling of peace that settles over her--she’s not okay, she won’t be for a while yet, but she will be, she knows this with certainty. The only stop she makes on the long trek back is at a stream she found once with a boy she thought she loved. She’d believed, naively perhaps, that cleaning her body might help clean her conscience. It doesn’t.

She keeps walking.

The gates are open when she finally reaches Camp Jaha, as if they knew she was coming, as if they were waiting to welcome her home. Her head is high when she enters the camp, and though she keeps a blank face, there is pure amazement at just how far they’ve come in just a few months.

People are staring at her. Clarke says nothing.

“Clarke!”

It’s Octavia who spots her first, her face lighting up with a joy that reminds her of the girl who once chased butterflies, and Clarke can’t help the smile that crosses her face in return.

It’s doesn’t fix things, but it’s progress. She’ll make it, they’ll all make it. After all, the 100 are nothing if not survivors.


End file.
